Sky and Telescope - December 2017 - 2

CONTENTS

THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO ASTRONOMY

FEATURES
COVER STORY:

Jupiter Rediscovered
NASA's Juno mission is revealing
that our solar system's largest planet
is a fantastic, cyclone-festooned
world with a strange interior.
By Fran Bagenal

20 Machines Learning
Astronomy
The new era of artiﬁcial intelligence
and Big Data is changing how we do
astronomy. By Monica Young

28 Understanding
Surface Brightness

14
32

December 2017
OBSERVING
41 December's Sky at a Glance
42

Lunar Almanac & Sky Chart

Binocular Highlight
By Mathew Wedel

Planetary Almanac

It took a while, but the light bulb
ﬁnally went on above my head.
By Jerry Oltion

Orion Nebula Sketch

VOL. 134, NO. 6

S&T TEST REPORT
58 Sky-Watcher Star
Adventurer Mini
By Alan Dyer

COLUMNS / DEPARTMENTS
4 Spectrum
By Peter Tyson

6 From Our Readers
An observer captures on a sketchpad
the stunning details of one of the
most wondrous objects in the night
sky. By Howard Banich

45 Under the Stars
By Fred Schaaf

By Roger W. Sinnott

46 Sun, Moon & Planets

64 Autoguiding with PHD2
This open-source freeware can help
you take perfectly tracked
astrophotos. By Jerry Lodriguss

By Fred Schaaf

10 News Notes

Celestial Calendar
By S. N. Johnson-Roehr

39 Book Review

52 Exploring the Moon
By Charles A. Wood

55 Deep-Sky Wonders
By Sue French

Find us on
Facebook & Twitter

ON THE COVER

N ASA / JPL / B JOR N JÓNSSON /
SE Á N DOR A N © PUBLIC DO M AIN

By S. N. Johnson-Roehr

68 Astronomer's Workbench
By Jerry Oltion

70 Gallery
84 Focal Point
By John Manney

ONLINE

PRODUCT VIDEOS
Watch hands-on interviews with
equipment manufacturers and
vendors by Dennis di Cicco.
skyandtelescope.com/
product-videos
Juno flies over the
Great Red Spot in
this artist concept,
from Voyager data.

8 75, 50 & 25 Years Ago

ONLINE STORE
Equip yourself for astronomy excellence with webinars, sky atlases,
and more, all made or chosen by the
staff of Sky & Telescope.
shopatsky.com

SKY AT A GLANCE
Our popular column highlights celestial delights for the upcoming week.
Also available as an app - with sky
charts included!
skyandtelescope.com/ataglance

SKY & TELESCOPE (ISSN 0037-6604) is published monthly by Sky & Telescope, a division of F+W Media, Inc., 90 Sherman St., Cambridge, MA 02140-3264, USA. Phone: 800-253-0245
(customer service/subscriptions), 888-253-0230 (product orders), 617-864-7360 (all other calls). Fax: 617-864-6117. Website: skyandtelescope.com. ©2017 F+W Media, Inc. All rights
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Printed in the USA.

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32 The Jewel in the Sword

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/product-videos http://www.skyandtelescope.com/product-videos http://www.shopatsky.com http://www.skyandtelescope.com/ataglance http://www.skyandtelescope.com

Sky and Telescope - December 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky and Telescope - December 2017